But the idea that Syracuse would unseat Kentucky as the nation's attendance was pretty apparent as far back as November.

After Syracuse drew a crowd of 24,788 for its 2013-14 season-opener against Cornell, the Orange appeared well on the way to its first attendance crown since 2005. The crowd for the Cornell game represented the largest crowd for a Syracuse opening game since the 1990-91 season. The 24,788 fans at the Cornell game far exceeded the crowd of 17,273 that attended Syracuse's 2012-13 season-opener against Wagner.

Syracuse's game against Duke on Feb. 1 not only drew an NCAA-record crowd of 35,446 to the Carrier Dome, but it also boosted season ticket sales. Scott Schild | sschild@syracuse.com Scott Schild | sschild@syracuse.

The increase in attendance was a result of a jump in season-ticket sales. Syracuse officials announced in November that the school's number of season-tickets was approaching 21,000. The ticket demand for SU home games against new ACC foes such as Duke and North Carolina was the driving force behind the season-ticket sales.

It didn't take Nostradamus to see that Syracuse was headed toward some big attendance figures. In the 2012-13 season, Syracuse played seven games in front of crowds of less than 20,000 at the Carrier Dome. In 2013-14, that number would shrink to one - a crowd of 19,473 for a Dec. 20 game against High Point. That game was not included on the SU student season-ticket package.

After looking at the attendance for the Cornell game and calculating in the increase in season-ticket sales, I estimated that Syracuse's attendance would jump from 22,439 in 2012-13 to 25,204 in 2013-14. That would mean that Syracuse would easily lead the nation in attendance.

Syracuse's average attendance for this past season turned out to be 26,253. I missed on the low side by about 1,000 per game. I was within 700 of the actual attendance for four games. And I was off by more than 2,000 five times.

You can see my game-by-game attendance predictions and the actual attendance figures in the chart below.